Territorial Army

When you are a mother of three boys, most people look at you pityingly and ask ‘Did you ever want a girl?’  Now this is a kind of pointless question to ask, as the laws of nature pretty much dictate what you are going to get, but actually, it would be lying to say that at no point had I entertained the idea that there may be a pink bedroom in the house.  Indeed, I will go so far as to say that once Little Man was born, and the euphoria at seeing his squashed up grumpy face had subsided into the Sore Boob and Sleepless phase, I did have a little wail.  ‘No one will remember my birthday… I’ve got no one to go shopping with… the house will smell of sweaty socks and Man Gas’ and so on.  G just raised his eyebrows, patted me on the arm and went off to make me a cup of tea until I came to my senses again.

But I couldn’t be more wrong.  You see, to a boy, as a mum you are his first love.  All three of mine as under fives have asked me to marry them, and got very upset when I said that I was already married.  All three of them say that I am the best cook in the world.  I have been presented with lovingly crafted bits of junk from clay (for keeping my jewelry in), countless Hama bead keyrings that fall apart in my handbag, pictures galore in which I feature with brown hair, blue hair, green eyeshadow, a variety of exotic outfits more befitting Carmen Miranda and lots of little notes.  And every birthday I get a bunch of flowers, a cake and depending on who has gone shopping with G, a hand chosen selection of things that I didn’t know I wanted. 

And now Eldest Son is taller than me, he has started to become quite protective of me, preferring to shelter me from the slings and arrows of  life.  Middle Son is flexing his pre-teen muscles and so poor old Dad gets that Alpha Male confrontation we see in every David Attenborough show, but which I escape by virtue of being female.  And Little Man still wants to marry me (or possibly one of the many girls he knows… but at least I feature in the list).

But of course I have another pre-teen in the house and that is Muttley.  Rapidly rounding the corner to a year old, he has got taller, filled out more and he’s developed a deep bark that he uses to great effect – even frightening himself sometimes.  He is still gentle and very soppy, and hasn’t got to that stage which has been so perfectly encapsulated in Meet the Fokkers with the dog and the toy.  But he has teeth.  And these became apparent one day when we went on a walk to the tennis courts.

The boys were messing around playing on the local tennis courts, it was a lovely afternoon and so I took Muttley for a little walk on the field next to them.  I was very proud of myself because I was wearing my brand new wellies, which were fetchingly attractive in a faux fur edging.  There was another dog, an enormous boxer, which was playing ball with his owner at the other edge of the field.  Muttley had his intense stare fixated on the stick that I had in my hand and so he was not at all interested in the other dog.  But the boxer made a beeline for us, and so I put on my most winning smile (funny what you do to dogs) as he was really rather big and battle scarred.  He completely ignored me, did the dog-to-tail dance with Muttley, and then for some indescribable reason, came and stood by my side, looking at his owner.

Within 30 seconds, I realised what he was doing.  He had cocked his leg, and was peeing on one of my furry wellies. Warm fluid ran down my leg.

I yelped and leapt back, his owner started running towards us, Muttley started barking frantically to protect my honour and the dog pounced on him. Within seconds they were rolling on the ground in snarls and bites, as the other owner launched himself on his dog, grappling with him.  He had not brought a lead, and after apologizing profusely, frogmarched his dog back to the car, both hobbling. Muttley was totally unscathed, and sat there panting as the boys ran up to see if we were all right.  They all high fived the dog for his part in protecting Mummy and fussed round me.  

 

My very own little Territorial Army.

 

Lost and Found

I was in the school car park one morning and noticed one of the mummies, T, looking a little bewildered. Now I knew that she hadn’t lost her car, as it is one of the biggest in the school (and she was standing by it), but she looked forlorn and so I approached her and enquired what was the matter. Her reply surprised me somewhat, ‘I’ve lost a Lettuce’ she announced, ‘It was in my shopping, in the back of the car, and now I can’t find it…’ and off she wandered.

 

Now on reflection this is not as strange as it may sound.  Often I have lost things in the back of my car and indeed my house, never to be seen again.  Anyone with a child will be familiar with the cry ‘MUUUUUM, where’s my…..’ and often the object in question is less than two feet away from the questioner.  I regularly ‘lose’ things in my fridge – a tasty bit of Camembert, or a bar of chocolate gets hidden at the back (where G doesn’t tend to find it) - for a quick secret snack. Middle Son regularly ‘loses’ his toothbrush, only to have his mum triumphantly ‘find’ a new one from a pack she has in the bathroom, Little Man loses nothing – even when he has – proclaiming that he knows where it is, even when he doesn’t…and Eldest Son this week announced that he had lost his games shirt.  This is the same games shirt that has survived multiple rugby matches, several hundred miles on a school bus and a severe dunking in a weir on the River Thames, and yet it is lost somewhere in our house…Mind you, this is still not bad, as two of the mums I know have yet to find full games kits- still in their bags- left on public transportation.  

 

And when it comes to animal ownership, the game of Lost and Found ramps up even more.  Pre-Muttley, we had the cats, a goldfish and a hamster.  The cats regularly found things to bring in to the house, even things that weren’t lost, like mice and pigeons, sometimes still alive and a little confused to be plonked underneath a sofa.  The goldfish lived in a permanent state of surprise as he swam in and out of his SpongeBob Squarepants castle. With a memory of less than 30 seconds, he lost his house…and then found it again…lost it…and oh joys, there it was again!  He forgot he hated the fish food, and then found out that he did… and so on.  The hamster went through a Houdini phase and worked out how to open the top loading door of her cage, and I luckily used to find her before the cats did  – once she was following me down the stairs.  We solved that problem by weighting the door with the heaviest book to hand, and by the time she died at a ripe old age she had devoured nearly two thirds of the Encylopedia of Wartime Machinery.

The kids came downstairs one day to feed the fish and shouted ‘Mum, we’ve lost the goldfish!’ Thinking that we had a death on our hands, I approached them with what I thought was a sympathetic look on my face, until I realised that Ringo had actually done a bunk.  We searched everywhere… and found him under the telly still alive.  Who knows how he got there – but TomCat was looking very pleased with himself …

I brought up a piece of toast two weeks ago to Little Man as I needed to get him out of bed and somewhere fairly fast. Putting it down in his room I announced that he had ten minutes to turn it all around and then walked out.  Lo and behold, in ten minutes he was downstairs and asking what was for breakfast. Exasperated I ran upstairs and could I find the toast – no – could I find the plate – no… (He had a new piece of toast in the car…)  Tidying up his room today I was a little distracted by some of his old school work (what would a teacher have thought as he scrawled I love my Mummy because she lets me get the washing out of the washing machine and put it in the tumble drier) and noticed too late that Muttley was happily chowing down on something.  He had found the two week old fluffy toast – it was under the bed, still on its plate.

I never did discover if T found her lettuce…

 

Raining Ducks and Dogs

I'm not sure what has been going on with the Great British Summer this year - but yesterday was another Don't Bother Drying Your Hair Before Going Out days.  Muttley is very partial to jumping in puddles - so imagine his delight when the normal puddles suddenly turned into mini lakes overnight due to the constant downpours. 

Unfortunately, it also confused a pair of very elderly ducks, who were sailing serenely in a puddle as Muttley charged towards them.

Out for a duck I think...

Lookalikes

There is a fun old adage that owners look like their dogs. A long time BC (before children) and indeed BG (before I met and married G), I lived in London like so many fun loving early twenty somethings.  I roomed with a South African girl, thrown together in the common misfortune of having nowhere to live and working together.  It was all a little odd really, we had so much but so little in common, and our house became a melting pot of waifs and strays from all over the world, some of whom remain my best friends today. 

 

C was a little older than me, but not much, and she had the added advantage of having been married once already – which in my eyes made her a terribly sophisticated woman about town.  She was very driven in her career, and although we started out in the same job, I realized that peddling pensions was not really my thing and moved on quickly to something else – but she was soon a manager.  Her job necessitated meeting very different people, and some of them became her friends.

One such couple she met was heading rapidly towards their mid forties and bred Akitas –Japanese fighting dogs who look cute but have all the tenacity of the Terminator once focused.  Blonde, tall and lean, the L’s  looked more like brother and sister, and adored their dogs.  They foisted all their love and attention on their Sami and Ninja, the fluffballs with teeth – in an attempt to detract from the real heartache, that they had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a child of their own.

This is where C came in, with her no nonsense approach, she carved into their finances and worked out an ‘IVF’ fund for them.  Within two tries the woman was pregnant and we were all delighted for them (despite swearing that we would never have kids, urgh, the very thought etc.)  C got a call from the hospital and once Mrs L was back at home three of us from the house piled into my antiquated car and drove round to see the new arrival.  Gay D (a Greek guy who had recently joined us, only came along for the ride because he was incurably nosey and loved looking into people’s houses), C and myself, looked down at the baby lying in its newly bought, no expense spared, hand smocked crib.

The child lay asleep, a shock of black hair crowning its head, dark lashes fronding the slits of his closed eyes.  His skin was tanned and firm, his mouth moving mechanically in a sucking motion as he snoozed.  Now when you are twenty something, and a little hungover, you don’t necessarily have the social etiquette to deal with the situation.  The fact of the matter is, the baby looked nothing like its parents – not one jot, nada…  (Gay D swept me to one side and whispered ‘Do you think the hospital mixed the babies up?’ and winced as I jabbed him hard in his ribs with my elbow.)  The new parents huddled round the crib, looking anxiously at our reactions.

Clearing his throat the father said ‘So who do you think he looks like?’ It was clearly bothering them too, and was a plea for reassurance, as they watched us just a little too closely. With a bark,  Sami bounded in, his black hair bushy around his ears, sparkling eyes darkly outlined in the eyeliner which Mother Nature has granted all animals except humans.  Grasping at straws, C said the first thing that came into her head ‘He looks like the dog!’

There was a stunned silence, except for Gay D who gave a theatrical gasp.

Then both parents burst into broad grins as they turned ecstatically to one another. ‘That’s what we said!’ ‘How amazing!’ ‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ and so the excited chatter went on.

The rest of us looked at each other in incredulity. 

Needless to say, over the next few months the baby’s hair turned into a golden halo of curls and his jaundice disappeared, replaced by delicious pudgy fat pinkness.  He was the spitting image of both of his parents, and now today should himself be in his early twenties.

So when you next see an overwieght Jack Russell wheezing next to its equally rotund lady owner, or a lean anoracked walker with rucksack and lurcher, or a beagle trotting next to a Surrey Mummy with a bob, remember, there is another adage ‘There’s nowt as strange as folk’ -  and at least they’re happy!